My Story

Discover Why I’m Dedicating the Rest of My Life to Helping You End Years of Fat Loss Frustration While Boosting Your Confidence and Giving You Endless Energy So You Can Keep Up With Your Kids and Succeed in This Crazy World

Hi, my name is Craig Ballantyne. I’m just a good ol’ Canadian boy who grew up on a farm about 90 minuets away from the big city of Toronto (where I now live). In fact, take a look at this video where you’ll see the house where I grew up and even where I did my first ever workouts in my basement just behind my dad’s workshop.

I had a lot of fun living out there in the country, and I still go back there at least once per month to help my mom around the house and walk through the fields with Bally, my dog. I guess living on that farm helped me fall in love with a healthy, active lifestyle – and the information that I want to share with you.

Now I know this is going to sound crazy, but since the age of 4 years old I knew that I wanted to help people change their lives and improve their health and fitness. That’s right, something happened to me when I was just 4 years old that changed my life – and yours, too – forever and for the better. Let me explain in this video…

As an athletic kid, I played every sport possible, from basketball to baseball, but in high school soccer and hockey were my favorite. Around the age of 16 I started getting into bodybuilding and reading all of the magazines from cover to cover, getting my hands-on education in the gym, doing some things right and some things wrong.

I studied hard, stayed out of trouble (well, out of “most trouble”), and got accepted to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, home to one of the best Kinesiology programs in the world (that’s the study of human movement and where I learned almost everything I know about fat loss training).

The three biggest influences on me – and the people you have to thank for Turbulence Training – were Drs. Digby Sale, Duncan MacDougall, and Mark Tarnopolsky.

They taught me everything I need to know about exercise physiology and nutrition. In fact, I eventually got accepted in the Graduate program at McMaster and had Dr. MacDougall as my advisor.

During my Master’s studies, I worked with Drs. MacDougall and Tarnopolsky on several sport supplement research studies, investigating androstenedione (the worthless supplement used by baseball slugger, Mark McGwire), and creatine monohydrate (one of the few supplements that actually does work).

Over the six years I spent in University (yes, six years!) my training focused switched from bodybuilding to athletic strength-endurance-power, and I also became the strength and conditioning coach for the University sports teams.

It was in my second year of my Kinesiology Degree when I first discovered interval training and what it could do for athletic performance, and it wasn’t long until I uncovered – quite by accident, really – what interval training could do for fat loss.

Having grown up on the bodybuilding magazines and their endless prescription for cardio as the best weight loss tool, I was shocked to discover how effective – and fast – interval training was for fat loss. It literally cut my workouts in half.

By my fourth year of University (1998), I started training other athletes for sports performance and regular men and women in the University gym for fat loss, and I started experimenting with interval training.

It wasn’t long until my own personal research confirmed what a research study from Quebec (published in 1994) had just revealed – that interval training was better than slow, boring cardio for fat loss.

All of my clients were raving about the results that my short, burst workouts were giving them, and they were even more amazed than I was that they could cut back on their workout time and still get more results. But I wasn’t done there.

In the winter of 1999 I was hard at work in a laboratory on the 4th floor of the McMaster Hospital analyzing blood from one of my studies. In our research project, subjects were given androstenedione or a placebo and then performed an intense workout. After the session I collected blood.

(Now I’m sure a few of you who have done my workouts are a little scared of me already, but just imagine doing one of my intense workouts and then having me come at you with a needle in my hand ready to jab it into your arm to extract your blood! It caused one of my subjects to faint during the blood collection!)

When the study was finished, I had to take that blood up into the lab and examine it for levels of testosterone and estrogen using a fancy-schmancy “gamma counter”. Fortunately, I didn’t get bit by any radioactive spiders (that I remember), however this lab work was killing my workout schedule.

I’d be in there from 7am to 11pm every day of the week, with only one 45 minute break. Now back then, everyone I knew spent at least an hour in the gym. Heck, it wasn’t uncommon to go in for a 90 minute workout, or even 2 hours! But those days were gone for me!

So I knew I had to get maximum results in minimum time and I combined everything I knew from bodybuilding to athlete training to interval training to research studies.

I put everything I had discovered in the past 7 years – since I first assembled that old York Universal Weight Set down in my parent’s basement – and I came up with the first ever Turbulence Training workout.

I combined non-competing resistance training supersets with interval training and as soon as I finished that workout I knew I had stumbled on to something good. In fact, I still remember finishing that workout with interval training on a stationary bike and smiling. I couldn’t wait to get back to the lab to write down my discovery.

And so it started. Years later Turbulence Training has evolved into an even more effective and comprehensive fat loss workout program, including new bodyweight exercises and circuits, kettlebell interval training, and even timed bodyweight intervals.

Just around the time I discovered Turbulence Training, the Internet was starting to take off and one day I stumbled across a popular fitness website featuring articles from well-known strength and conditioning coaches. I immediately thought, “Hey, I can write articles just as good as those ones”, and so my online business was born.

I immediately started an email newsletter called, “CB Athletic Consulting” and I still have those issues up today at www.cbathletics.com.

And then in my last summer as a graduate student, I was surfing the Internet looking for career opportunities when I stumbled across the email address for the then Men’s Health magazine fitness editor, Lou Schuler.

I knew Lou’s name from reading every issue of Men’s Health for the last 4 years, and so without any hesitation, I sent Lou the latest copy of my CB Athletic newsletter. He just happened to love the piece I wrote about shoulder training, and just like that my work was featured in the magazine.

Lou introduced me to Adam Campbell (the current fitness editor at Men’s Health) and I started working with Lou and Adam on projects nearly every month.

It’s been almost 10 years now that I was first published, and since then I’ve gone on to contribute to several Men’s Health books and I’ve even flown down to MH Headquarters to film video for their website.

The most popular work I’ve ever done for MH was filming the “300 Workout”. That video has been viewed over 1 million times on Youtube alone, and it still gets watched over 1000 times per day.

However, most people think I wrote the original 300 workout, but I did NOT – and I just want to make that clear…I’m not trying to get credit for the workout…all I did was respond to a request from Men’s Health to film the video for their site.

However, it did give me an idea to create a program called the Turbulence Training Bodyweight 500 and then the follow up, Turbulence Training Bodyweight 1000 programs. You can also find these on Youtube and the complete workouts are available at www.TurbulenceTraining.com.

Those workouts are a lot of fun, and the challenge keeps more people motivated to stick with their programs. But back to the history of Turbulence Training…

In the fall of 2001 I was returning from a sports supplement conference in Salt Lake City and thinking about workout programs when suddenly it hit me. Or more accurately, suddenly we hit it. Turbulence.

And somehow, someway, my brain connected turbulence with training and the name Turbulence Training was born. Isn’t that crazy? True story.

As soon as I returned home I posted my first Turbulence Training workout on my cbathletics.com site back in November, 2001. It was an instant hit. In 2002, I continued designing similar workout programs for all of my friends who were done college and now working real jobs, with little to no time for long workouts.

I found myself designing almost the identical program over and over again for my friends and I said to myself, “This has gotta stop. Why don’t I just create a big manual with lots of workouts that I can email to the guys when they ask for a program?”

And that’s what I did. But it wasn’t called Turbulence Training. In fact, in 2002 I created two manuals, the first was called “Get Lean”, and the second was called, “The Executive Lifestyle Manual”.

It wasn’t until mid-2003 that I finally started putting together the first Turbulence Training manual for sale, and I finally launched it to the world on September 13, 2003, for the whopping price of $9.95.

Of course, it didn’t have all the amazing workouts you get in Turbulence Training now, nor did it have exercise photos. Those didn’t come along until early 2005, but the big thing was that I finally got Turbulence Training out to the world.

In 2004 and 2005 word gradually spread about Turbulence Training. Then in late 2005 a few things suddenly “came together” that helped me achieve my first “explosion” in my business.

The first factor was that my articles were published in an e-zine from EarlytoRise.com (and I still write for them every month), and the second factor was that I started emailing fat loss tips to you and other TT readers more frequently.

Then in 2006 Turbulence Training hit the big time. I began working with a business coach and he helped me improve my website to attract more people looking for short, effective fat loss workouts you can do at home.

These days there are dozens and dozens of ways that you could stumble across Turbulence Training, from Youtube to blog posts to referrals.

But back then, it was really only through Men’s Health, Early to Rise, and from a couple of forums. Working with my coach, Tom Venuto (author of “Burn the Fat”) helped me bring Turbulence Training to more readers than anything else I have ever done.

In 2007, video had become easy to watch and easy to create, so I jumped into that scene and began making and posting as many videos as I could.

As I mentioned earlier, the 300 workout video took off and has helped me reach over a million men and women. I’ve also added over 104 other videos featuring the best home gym workout advice you’ll find anywhere – even when compared to TV shows!

(One of my current big projects is to create my own Turbulence Training TV show, and I know that we have the credibility and creativity to bring you a show unlike anything else any other fitness professional could imagine. One look at my “Diet vs Exercise” video series shows you what we are capable of – delivering good humor and an important message.)

I also started the Turbulence Training Membership Website (www.TTmembers.com) in early 2007, and I’ve been creating a new monthly workout even longer (since October 2005).

Each month the workouts get better and better. In 2009 I’ve released instant classics like TT2K9, Turbulence Training for Buff Dudes and Hot Chicks, and TT AAA Abs. As a TT Member, you get access to the current workout of the month along with the invaluable discussion forums.

In 2008, the biggest Turbulence Training development was the launch of the 1st ever Turbulence Training Transformation Contest. I had NO IDEA how this was going to go when I first announced the contest, but it turned out 10x’s better than I ever hoped, as has every contest since.

Our first winner, Emily Johnson, achieved amazing results, as have the winners of all subsequent contests – Catherine Gordon, Hal Empson, Jonny Munro, and Robyn Sutorowski. If I had to pick the great thing I’ve ever done in my life, it might just be the creation of the Turbulence Training Transformation Contest.

The Transformation Contest has helped change lives and build life-long friendships between TT users from all over the world. From New Zealand to Alaska, from Bahrain to Budapest, and from Moscow to Montreal, we’ve had TT’ers lose thousands of pounds of fat while giving one another the social support they need on the TT forums.

In a world of depression and despair, I’m so proud of every man and woman that has ever been a part of the Turbulence Training Membership Forums and who has helped another person transform their life and their body. Thank you to everyone!

In fact, we had so many success stories and requests to share the secrets of my program that I wrote my first book, “Just Say NO to Cardio”. When we released it back in November, 2008, it flew up the charts at Amazon, quickly becoming a Diet and Exercise #1 best seller.

And so that brings us to 2009…So far we’ve added Turbulence Training Bootcamp Workouts to the TT family, and as a result we’re helping more TT members share the Turbulence Training message with other men and women all around the world.

Later this year we’ll have the Turbulence Training Certification program available for home study, and hopefully we’ll have many more of the Turbulence Training Customer Appreciation Events like the one we had this past January.

I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for Turbulence Training and I can’t thank you enough for your support and for being a part of this powerful journey.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you reach your goals,

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About ETR

Early To Rise delivers science-based systems and structures to help people achieve a higher level of performance. We share proven strategies for success and help our readers steer clear of fads, gimmicks, and frauds. This ensures a win-win relationship between our readers and ETR, and creates faster results for everyone.